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ive Digitized by the Internet : A rch in 2014 https://archive.org/details/enviroviews16n1 EDMONTON VOLUME SIXTEEN NUMBER ONE SUMMER 1993 E N V I RON M E N T S I W Lifeboats to the Future Alberta's Ark: What's Wanted on the Voyage? • Scandanavian Design for Calgary Living • Take the Test • Technology: ^ekyll or Hyde? • Inching Along: Measuring v Sustainable Development ENVIRONMENT Lifeboats How to Build Special Places 2000 3 by Susan Kelly Alberta's Ark VIEWS The Push to Calgary's Affordable Launch a New Sustainable Community 9 Way of Life Project by Scott Rollans Environment Views is published quarterly by Alberta How Well Do You Environmental Protection. Each issue deals with a Find Your Spot specific topic from various viewpoints w ith the aim of Know Your Way Around increasing awareness of environmental issues among on the Lifeboat 12 Environmental Issues? Albenans. Environment Mews is directed by an independent board with representation from environmental groups, government and industry . T he viewsexpressed by the publication are not necessarily Can Technology The Technological Fix those of Alberta Environmental Protection. Bail Us Out? 15 by Alice Major Subscriptions are free and can be obtained by mailing the card on the back cover. Permission to reproduce any part of this publication forcommercial purposes should be obtained by w riling the address below. Reproduction for other purposes Charting a Course 19 Indicators should credit this publication. for Sustainable Letters to the editor are welcomed, and should be by Debby Waldman sent to: Development Environment Views Alberta Environmental Protection Communications Division Main Floor. Oxbridge Place 9820 - 106 Street Edmonton. Alberta T5K 2J6 427-6267 Articles appearing in this magazine are indexed in Environmental Periodicals Bibliography. EDITOR'S NOTEBOOK Editor: Lynn Zwicky. Rollans Laing Communications Inc. A plliafceeb oa otf cdaann g etra ke t o y oa u p lfarcoem o fa values p heers msayb weed d neede d i nc l etaerc h tnhoilnokgiyn g b aebfoourte twhee DAesssiisgtnaenrt: EGdriatnotr : E lBsatronb,a r aS i lMiccoCno rTdy pe safety. This issue of Environ- can expect technology to solve our environ- & Graphics Ltd. ment Views tells the stories of mental problems. Alice Major, in her story on Editorial Board: Ian Burn, executive director. people in Alberta who are trying to move us the technological fix, explores our hopes and Energy Efficiency and Environmental away from environmental crisis and toward fears about relying on technology to bring Affairs Branches, Alberta Department of a more environmentally secure world. environmental crises under control. WEnielrdgeyr;n e Dsasv i dS o cDioedtgey,; CAarnlaedniea n K wPaarsknsi a akn.d The Alberta Round Table and other groups Environmental Law Centre. Edmonton: Susan Kelly's article on Special Places Peter Lee, head. Natural and Protected 2000 describes an Alberta government pro- in Canada have taken on the challenge of Areas, Alberta Environmental Protection: posal to p rotect our wild lands. If the proposal identifying sustainable development indica- David McCoy, senior environmental succeeds, it will preserve for the future a scientist. Husky Oil. Calgary: Fred tors. It's tough going. They are trying to package of intact ecosystems: an ark. measure progress toward something we still McDougall. vice-president and general manager, Weyerhauser Canada Ltd.: Sustainable communities will also be gifts don't know the shape of: sustainable devel- Trevor McFadyen. student. University of to future generations. They will be created to opment. Should we stop and study more, or Alberta; Charlotte Moran. assistant director of fit into a world with more people and fewer muddle on and learn as we go? Debby communications. Alberta Environmental Waldman covers this emerging field. Protection: Kim Sanderson. Canadian Society resources. But that's not their only attraction. of Environmental Biologists; Annette Trimbee. When Scott Rollans talked with people about This issue also marks a passage from a manager. Environmental Assessment Section. place of safety to a place of danger. After 1 1 Alberta Environmental Protection; Bob Calgary's Affordable Sustainable Commu- nity Project, they told him they liked the years in the steady and capable hands of Westbury. vice-president of Environment and Public Affairs. TransAlta Utilities Corporation, community design because it w ould let them Maryhelen Vicars, Environment Views has a Special thanks to Archie Landals for his help meet their neighbours. A solid sense of com- new editor. We'll miss Maryhelen and her with this issue. Printed on recycled paper. munity rivals things such as energy-efficient dedication to making Environment Views an housing and co-operative composting as key important magazine. If I r ock the boat in my ingredients in a sustainable neighbourhood. new role, I hope I also manage to keep it o Technologists think up new ways to clean afloat. up old environmental problems and avoid Lynn Zwicky is an Edmonton writer new ones. Their innovations will no doubt be and researcher who specializes in ydlbcrra environmental issues. important as the next generation tries to do ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION more with less. But environmental philoso- Cover photo: Mark Degner UNIVERS-In/T Y o r L IABLRBAERRYT A Environment Views Summer 1993 Susan Kelly SPECIAL PLACES 2000 How to Build Alberta's Ark Boreal forest near Athabasca. Timber leases claim over Thew hate x pweer ts s h hoauvled hparde s etrhevier osfa y A labbeoru-t 200,000 square kilometres of Alberta's boreal turn. ta's wild lands. Soon it w ill be your forest. A protected areas system will lock some of it away Special Places 2000 is a government pro- for good. Chris Anderson, director of forestry with Canfor in posal to p rotect Alberta's natural diversity for says the systematic approach of Special future generations. The objective is a com- pleted parks system by the end of the decade and the policy outlines a strategy for piecing UWVERSITY OF ALgt%<j%s 2(>00 will make it easier for it together. It divides the province into 19 fOMO/VTO/V, ALBERTA industrv to set areas aside- natural regions and sets targets for the amount CANAQA of land to be protected in each. Special Places 2000 for the past year. "We The planners who drafted the proposal are want support from the public and from the The proposal appears to have political sup- now looking for approval to put it i nto action. politicians to complete the system by 2000, port. At the end of April, the government Archie Landals is a systems planner with the and to say, 'yes, the framework of the natural atphpeo i snytsetde m .a' "p anel to collect public comment Alberta Parks Service who has worked on regions is a good thing to guide completion of on Special Places 2000. The report of the Summer 1993 Environment Views 3 five-member panel, chaired by former envi- ronment minister Fred Bradley, is due the end of June. "It's like a wind change," says George Newton, advocacy chair for the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS). "For 20 years we've been fighting to get protection for wilderness, and have actually lost wilder- ness protection in Alberta. That people in high positions are actually seeing that we have to do something and making that kind of commitment I t hink is significant, because it signals a change in the upper echelon, where it's been so hard." Special Places 2000, and projects such as the World Wildlife Fund's Endangered Spaces Campaign, are the direct descendants of the Cliff Wallis, above; and Archie Landals, below. Special Places 2000 is a blueprint that shows what we of protection. The proposal's foundation is a hierarchy of six natural regions. 1 9 subregions need to protect. and three levels of "natural history themes," which are local areas delineated with increas- - Cliff Wallis ing precision according to their natural fea- tures. The team doing the groundwork for the World Commission on Environment and De- work of p rotected areas that meet four goals: project has evaluated all of Alberta's existing velopment, or t he Brundtland Commission. • to protect the full range of natural environ- protected areas, with the exception of sites The Brundtland report, Our Common Future, mental diversity in Alberta, with virtually no protection value such as recommended that countries protect 12 per • to protect natural landscapes for outdoor picnic grounds next to highways. cent of their land mass in a natural state for recreation, "That's the first time we have totally evalu- the benefit of future generations. The reason • to provide the public with access to, and ated everything," says Landals. "For the first is that wild lands are irreplaceable. Once interpretation of, natural landscapes, time, we know what's in the system." This • to protect areas for adventure travel and data-intensive approach should lead to a pro- they're gone, they're gone — along with genetic resources ecotourism. tected areas system that truly represents Al- of unknown potential and a The diversity protection goal has a berta's diversity, rather than just a collection piece of our spiritual home. clear target — 100 per cent representa- of unique sites. If Special Places 2000 is tion of A lberta's diversity. No bench- "We're getting to a much more efficient successful, by the end of the mark exists for the heritage, recreation way of handling the data and knowing what decade Alberta will have a and tourism goals. the options are than ever before," says Landals. comprehensive net- "We really don't know what the tourism "We might get to the point where we can say: and recreation targets should be," this is what we've got, this is what we're Landals says. He hopes that public- missing and these are the options to fill them." input will help set these targets. Maps of the natural regions and subregions. George Newton of CPAWS in one form or another, have been around for a decade or more. But they have never been kesthe proposal's broad scope. the foundation of a government policy on "It goes beyond Endangered protected areas. Cliff Wallis of the Alberta Spaces." Newton says Endan- gered Spaces is m ostly about Wilderness Association says Special Places 2000 is a big improvement. preserving threatened eco- systems, but Special "With this document, we have a blueprint Places 2000 looks at or a map to follow, to say 'OK. what don't we outdoor recreation and have enough of?" Our biggest problem all heritage appreciation as along has been that there has been no stated well. government policy to get full representation Special Places 2000 for the natural diversity that's out there in is a systematic ap- Alberta. At least this gets us thinking about proach to t he problem things in an organized fashion." Environment Views Summer 1993 Level of Existing Protection for Alberta's Natural Areas s| L ittle or No Protection J So me Protection wyyh Moderate Protection Good Protection Natural Regions and Sub-Regions of Alberta Grassland Natural Region 1 - Mixedgrass 2 - Northern Fescue 3 - Foothills Fescue Parkland Natural Region 4 - Parkland 5 - Foothills Parkland 6 - Peace River Parkland Foothills Natural Region 7 - Lower Foothills 8 - Upper Foothills Rocky Mountain Natural Region 9 - Montane 10 - Subalpine 11 - Alpine Boreal Forest Natural Region 12 - Dry Mixedwood 13 - Central Mixedwood 14 - Wetland Mixedwood 15 - Boreal Highlands 16 - Peace River Lowlands 17 - Subarctic Canadian Shield Natural Region 18 - Athabasca Plain 19 - Kazan Upland Summer 1993 Environment Views 5 then continue to work on the tough ones The proposal's systematic approach also appeals to industry. It will focus attention on poiAnntd e orfs ovnie w .s"a ys industry supports the con- where there are conflicts as we go along," the areas that are not well represented and cept behind Special Places 2000, but won- says Archie Landals. "The further you go, of show, as a package, what needs to be set ders how the program will look on the ground. course, the tougher it's going to be. But I s ee aside. He anticipates conflicts in local areas. The lots of opportunities for win-wins out there." Special Places 2000 creates targets for the "Industry thrives on predictability." says planners say they will pick their sites care- Chris Anderson, director of forestry for amount of land needed to represent ecosys- fully. "We'll focus on the easy wins first, and Cantor. "If that kind of approach could be established, if reasonable numbers could be agreed on, if we could get it to a situation Special Places 2000 where it's predictable and we know the rules, that would be desirable from a broad industry targets 360 square kilometres of the Kazan Uplands for protection. No legislation now protects this remote, undeveloped piece of the Canadian Shield in Alberta's northeastern corner. terns in each of its regions. For example, 250 square kilometres of organic wetlands would adequately protect the Peace River Lowlands. * u p Since over 6,000 square kilometres are al- ready protected in Wood Buffalo National 1 1 . *m Park, the target has been reached and ex- r ceeded. The picture is not as rosy every- where. Overall, the system is about 50 per cent complete. 30W mm Can we get the other 50 per cent together by the end of the decade? Public review of the proposal will make things slow, and as it stands, it t akes about two years to designate a new ecological reserve. "I'd like to be optimistic," says Dave Chabillon, assistant deputy minister. Alberta Parks Service. "It does take time to get the land base legislated but land can be identified and placed under protective reservation until the full public review and considerations are given. So in my judgment, the year 2000 is an attPariontaebclet e dg o aalr.e"a s are only the core of the system and planners caution that they do not adequately address the requirements of large carnivores and migratory birds. Ideally, "zones of protection" would surround the core areas, where some development might be permit- ted, but some land use controls would still apply. "To achieve your protection targets, you are going to have to look at managing the entire landscape," says Cliff Wallis. "These target areas are the safety cores. The last thing that we want is for these things to become islands in a sea of total obliteration." In addition, the targets only cover the pro- tection goal o f Special Places 2000. Add in Kazan Uplands at Wylie Lake. land for recreation and tourism and the sites 6 Environment Views Summer 1993 The Peace River Parkland Peace River Parkland at Silver Valley, northwest of Spirit River. now has 31 square kilometres of protected area, a fraction of the 200 square kilometres needed to preserve it. have the capability of having parks, recrea- tion areas, natural areas and ecological re- Only remnants remain unploughed. serves, plus t he capability of classifying be- yond that written into the act." says Landals. "You have more than enough categories to would probably have to be larger. tem has grown over 60-odd years, and you Special Places 2000 defines protected ar- used whatever legislation was expedient at eas as " places that are explicitly legislated the time. So we've got areas out there that are and managed to protect important natural called provincial parks that by anybody's features." Alberta has a variety of legislation definition are not; they're purely highway for protecting natural areas, ranging from the waysides or recreation areas." Special Places Willmore Wilderness Act to the conditions 2000 proposes to review the classification of for setting up ecological reserves. existing protected areas, which may help to With 20 years of experience as a parks clarify exactly what "protected" means. system planner, Archie Landals has a clear Wallis and Landals agree that Alberta al- ready has the legislation to achieve the goals perspective on the status quo. "Quite frankly, classification in Alberta is a mess. The sys- of Special Places 2000. "In the legislation we People in high positions are actually seeing that we have to do something and are making a commitment. - George Newton Dave Chabillon Summer 1993 Environment Views 7 The planners would like commitment from It's an idea that makes sense. Protected work with, but everything that's out there areas are supposed to benefit Albertans now isn't necessarily in the right place. We have to outside government as well. "We would like clean up what went before, but we're cer- to go back to environmental groups and cor- and in the future, and along with the right to tainly not proposing any new legislation to porate Alberta and look for support in manag- have a natural heritage should go the respon- sibility tot ake an interest in managing it. get on with the job." ing these sites," says Dave Chabillon. "We would be looking at the stewardship program Cliff Wallis says legislation is fine, "but if Editor' s note: For a copy o/Special Places that is already in place for the natural areas the government commitment isn't there to 2000. and information on the public consul- actually protect these areas and manage them and expanding it t o other protected areas. We tation process, call 1-800-661-5586. as intact systems, then no amount of legisla- see an opportunity for Albertans to be active Susan Kelly is an Edmonton freelance writer. tion is g oing to prevent their destruction." in managing the sites through volunteerism." Big pieces of Alberta's grasslands survive relatively intact — grazed, but uncultivated. Private owners lay claim to most of this land. Their co-operation will be crucial in setting areas aside. Grasslands National Park, Saskatchewan. mon law allows property owners to re- which allows private people to enter into a strict the u ses of their land even after they contract with the Minister of Natural Re- Simply Setting sell it, t he intent has traditionally been to sources or a conservation group to protect stop certain kinds of development. To stop It A side natural areas they own. "The idea is to all development and protect a natural area, have the preservation of an area enforced you have to meet a set of cumbersome by someone else," says Kwasniak. Prince conditions. Edward Island has similar conservation Albertlooaki nga n da t o twhaeyr s p rtoov i snicmepsl i afrye Says Kwasniak: "For example, you need easement legislation, as do most of the privately setting aside land for two parcels of land — one that benefits states in the U.S. conservation, says Arlene from the restrictions and one that is re- Kwasniak is encouraged by the interest Kwasniak, a lawyer with Edmonton's En- stricted. Landowners who want to pre- the Alberta government has shown in vironmental Law Centre. serve ba it of natural habitat usually do not simplfying private conservancy. She thinks Last year, Kwasniak helped Kathy and people who want to set aside land deserve Locke Girvan place restrictive covenants worAsk wienl l p,a i Krws.a"s niak points out, common- all the help they can get. They already risk on their lakeshore property to preserve it law covenants "must be framed in nega- losing financially by disallowing develop- in perpetuity (see Environment Views ment. tives— what you can't do — rather than in 15(4), Spring 1993, p.4). positives. It would be easier if we could "They may take a beating, but they want "It was very complicated," she says. say 'we want to keep this land for natural to do something to conserve nature." "It's always complicated when you have habitat' instead of listing all the things it Lynn Zwicky to use common-law rules." can't be to stay in a natural state." Common law is a body of non-statutory Nova Scotia has the Conservation rules built up by tradition. Although com- Easements Act, in effect since last year, 8 Environment Views Summer 1993

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